This week we spoke with the founder of digital global project, Findation.com to discuss beauty, crowd-sourcing, and how technology is helping consumers make better choices when it comes to shopping.

Most recently introducing the Findation project, Kate Morris aims to create the world’s largest usable database of matching foundation shades. The online platform sources your foundation match by referencing their online database of shades, based on information entered by other foundation users.

In spirit of the websites upcoming launch, we asked Kate a few questions about digital media, technology and the ever evolving beauty industry.

Q: How did you get started in the beauty industry?Kate: I’ve always loved cosmetics, I’ve been in the beauty industry since the early 90s – I worked in the beauty section of a pharmacy during high school, and then worked on the counters in department stores while at university. I started online beauty retailer Adore Beauty in 1999, and I’m still a director there.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about what’s happening at Findation and what you’re most excited about for the near future?Kate: Right now Findation is in the very very early stages – we only went live in beta five days ago. So at the moment it’s really exciting to see people use the site and adopt the concept. We’re trying to collect as much match data as we can to improve the algorithm so that we can return really accurate matches and a match in every brand and product on the market. A big job!

Q: What makes Findation stand out from the rest?Kate: Well as far as I know, there’s not really anything else like it. There are a few other sites that have spreadsheets and that sort of thing, and long forum threads where people discuss their matches, but in terms of collating all that data and making it really simple to use – I don’t think anyone else is doing it.

Q: With the fashion and beauty industries emerging into the digital realm, what are your thoughts about the industry’s transition into a tech-friendly platform? Kate: It can’t happen soon enough as far as I’m concerned! It’s been a pretty slow start and there is still so much potential for the fashion and beauty industries to really embrace technological solutions for their customers’ problems. Findation for example uses technology to solve the problem of not being able to pick a matching foundation shade. I’d love to see someone solve the fashion problem of buying things online that end up looking terrible when you try them on.

Q: With an exponentially growing number of new apps and e-commerce platforms, do you think that consumers are ever over-saturated with content? How does Findation help streamline this process as a one-stop source for foundation and beauty suggestions? Kate: Consumers can never be over-saturated with content that is useful to them and that makes their lives easier. I’d like to think that Findation can be the sort of tool that saves consumers time (they don’t have to visit a store) and money (they don’t waste money on buying the wrong shade).

Q: What do you (and your team) do to stay on top of the latest technology to continue to enhance your brand?Kate: I actually think it’s more important to stay on top of what consumers want. It can be very tempting to use the latest gadget or tech gimmick but you need to be judicious and think about what’s useful and what isn’t. Take QR codes for example – how many consumers are actually demanding to be able to scan QR codes for more information on an advertisement?? Does it really solve a problem for them? Technology needs to be used sensibly.

Q: How do you think that e-commerce is affecting the fashion industry?Kate: The most interesting thing to me about e-commerce is the way in which it is breaking down national borders for retail. All of a sudden you’ve got these global retailers like ASOS and Net-a-Porter, and it’s not about local market pricing or seasons any more – it’s one big global market, and trends are worldwide and pretty much instant. It’s very challenging for traditional distribution models.

Q: What are your future aspirations for Findation? Do you ever see yourself expanding past just foundation shades?Kate: You never know! I’m focused on getting foundation shades working well first. We’ll see what happens from there.